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I would walk down the hall with my guitar and play for anyone that would listen. As a young kid I was really driven and I was going to make it happen no matter what.

I would listen to Little Richard and Fats Domino and Chuck Berry, and I would listen to how they played their riffs, and after I taught myself that, I taught myself to play my own kind of stuff.

My mom had to beg the guys to let me play. I couldn't even play the drums right - Brian had to show me.

I wanted to play drums, and I got a set when I was 14 and just started to play in the house, to the stereo. I liked Ringo Starr, of course. And Sandy Nelson. I had his record, 'Let There Be Drums,' and I'd play along with it.

My mother says I was two-and-a-half when I started playing. My father was a minister, and when he went to church in the morning, she would put on Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole and Cole Porter records. I'd crawl up on the piano stool, sit on a phone book and play.

When I was growing up, I'd be in the choir. My mum was the organist in the church, so I'd sing in the church.

We would work up a tune that would make me learn a drum pattern I hadn't played before. In the early stages, the pattern wouldn't just fall into place, and I would start thinking about it. And the more I thought about it, the worse it would get.

When I'd hear something that sounded like I could follow it - most of those big band jazz tunes are blues anyway - I would hum it and play with the fiddle while I was humming.

Our main thing we'd have to entertain us: All my uncles would come over, and we'd sit around the living room on a weekend night, and we'd play. That was a big event for me, getting to play. We never did have any percussion.

I actually used to make these little plays. I would stand there, and I would act out where I was dying or something. I would make them sit there and watch all my plays. I would be talking in gibberish language, like I was talking in a different language, and my parents would be like, 'Oh that was great!' and I'd be like, 'Wait, it's not done!'